Obama Meets Pope Francis, Hopes for a Bump in the Polls

President Barack Obama met with Pope Francis at the Vatican Thursday, a historic meeting that has been shrouded, in part, by the president’s faltering approval rating back home.

"Wonderful meeting you,” Obama said to the Pope, according to Politico. “It is a great honor. I'm a great admirer. Thank you so much for receiving me."

Obama gave the pontiff a box of seeds for the papal gardens, which Francis had earlier opened to the public. In return, the Pope gave Obama a plaque and an encyclical, which the president said he will use in the White House. “I actually will probably read this in the Oval Office, when I’m deeply frustrated. I’m sure it will give me strength and calm me down.”

The Pope, at Obama’s request, prayed for the first family. “They’ve been very strong,” the president said. “Pray for them. I would appreciate it.”

Fifty-nine percent of Americans said they disapproved of the job Obama is doing in a poll released Wednesday. That’s the worst polling to date in Obama’s presidency, making his trip to Europe—set against the backdrop of the Ukrainian crisis and a fraught rollout of the Affordable Care Act in the States—a crucial test. The president may have been looking for what one theology professor called “the Francis bump,” given the pontiff’s 76 percent approval rating with Americans.

As the Associated Press notes, Obama is the ninth U.S. president to visit the Vatican on an official trip. The Vatican had downplayed expectations of the trip in advance of the meeting, indicating that it was unlikely to make news in the way President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II’s 1982 agreement to fight communism did.

Obama’s relationship with the Catholic Church has also been fraught in recent months, as U.S. bishops criticized the administration over the Affordable Care Act’s mandatory coverage of contraception. This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, which may determine the constitutionality of the mandate.